Chapter 39
“But why?” I say. “Why did her mind return to that particular event?”
“People sometimes experience memory loss surrounding moments of great trauma. And I believe that carriage accident, and the subsequent loss of your father, was a massive trauma that split her world in two. Before that, she was a member of society, and after that, her life slipped into isolation and disgrace. With the loss of your father, her life changed dramatically for the worse.”
“But she remembers me. So she can’t have forgotten the past twenty years entirely.”
“Unless…” He rubs his chin.
“Unless what?”
He gives me a wary look. “I will venture a guess that you were named after your father?”
He raises his brows meaningfully.
A cold, oily feeling runs down my spine. “Are you insinuating that she’s confusing me with my father?”
“Do you remember the very first thing she said to you when she saw you? After calling out your name?”
I press my clammy palms to my temple, trying to think. My thoughts are in disarray, cluttered and jumbled. But then it comes to me. “She asked me how I was feeling.”
“Why would she ask you how you’re feeling? She is the one who has been sick, not you.”
I don’t answer. I wondered the same at the time.
“Because she thinks you were just in a terrible accident.”
“No.” I shake my head. “No, that can’t be right.”
“Did she address you as you would expect?”
My mind races, poring over every moment with new eyes.
She greeted me. She said my name, but it is also my father’s name.
She embraced me, but she could have done that to him as well.
What’s concerning is what she did not say.
She never asked why she was in a guest room rather than in her own room.
She never asked about the yellow fever. She hardly even addressed me, which is peculiar.
She kept glancing at me out of the corners of her eyes, as though aware of my presence but not fully at ease.
My vision blurs around the edges. Mother forgot me?
“Before you walked into the room,” Doctor Lobo says, “she had been asking about your father, how he fared in the accident. I was about to tell her that he died, but just then you walked in, cutting our conversation short. I didn’t manage to break the news to her that her beloved suitor had died.
She appeared to recognize you, which didn’t make sense; she thought you were a baby in the womb.
I thought perhaps her memories returned upon seeing you.
But after you left to get water, she asked about her mother as though her mother was waiting for her to return home.
It didn’t seem right. So I set up a test. I asked her about the president of the country.
She knows nothing of Prudente de Morais or our civilian government.
She doesn’t even know Brazil is a republic.
She thinks it’s still an empire, as it was in 1877. ”
A sinking feeling forms in the pit of my stomach. “Oh no…Then we must remind her.” I pick up my pace as we head to the casa grande. “We must—”
“Wait.” He is following behind me now. “It is never a good idea to attempt to force traumatic memories back into someone’s mind. Especially one who so recently emerged from this deep slumber. It can backlash, trigger an even greater shock. It is best to allow the memories to return on their own.”
“Are you certain?”
“There is a famous case study in the medical literature of a woman who, newly awakened from a deep slumber, was forced by relatives to confront traumatic memories she had repressed.”
“And?”
“She fell into a permanent stupor.”
My blood drains from my limbs. I don’t know what that is, but it sounds dreadful.
“She never spoke another word. Unable to take care of herself. Needed help even to eat meals and drink water.”
I sit on the straw-backed chair by the window, watching Mother sleep.
She lies not on her back but on her side, and I watch the gentle rise and fall of her chest. That is how I know it is a normal sleep.
Still, every so often I get up to reassure myself by placing my hand in front of her mouth until I can feel her breath on it.
I desperately need a cigarette, but I am afraid the smoke may rouse her, or irritate her lungs.
I refuse to believe that Mother forgot me.
She never would. Doctor Lobo does not know her. Perhaps she does have memory loss, and in her disorientation is confusing me with my father. But she must remember me in some way, I simply cannot believe otherwise.
The next time I rise to place my hand before her nose, to reassure myself that she is not dead, her eyes flutter open. She catches me with my hand by her face. I step back, startled.
She rubs her eyes, then pushes herself into a sitting position, groaning and grimacing.
“Are you well?” I ask.
I avoid the temptation to call her Mother. I am not sure what she remembers, and if Doctor Lobo’s warnings are true, then she could fall into a permanent stupor. I cannot allow anything bad to happen when she is only just returned. I must be careful in the extreme.
Once seated, she looks up at me. She pulls the covers over herself with modesty.
“I’m not dressed,” she says, averting her eyes.
“I apologize,” I mutter.
But she is dressed. She is wearing a simple cotton dress.
I consider this, unnerved. She is not dressed, perhaps, to entertain guests…But I am not a guest.
I take another step back. I tell her I’ve left clothes for her, and the servants will bring water for a bath. That she’s been asleep for a couple hours.
“You’re talking!” she calls out, as though only just realizing.
I’m baffled. Why shouldn’t I be talking? I don’t know what to say in response. She continues to regard me in silence. Her eyes widen slightly and her posture straightens.
I see it now. The look on her face, the shy manner in which she regards me. It’s not like her.
Is she seeing my father instead of me?
The thought makes me want to retreat, to put space between us, but I remain frozen in place.
I feel a little afraid of her, as though I’m looking at a stranger.
“You weren’t talking much before,” she adds. “It just seems like you’re better, that’s all.”
Better? Is she referring to the fact that I was crying earlier?
“I was…” shocked to see you alive. “…happy to see you well.”
I hesitate. I remember Doctor Lobo’s warnings. I can’t speak freely without knowing for certain who she thinks she is speaking to.
“Doctor Lobo says you are recovering well, too,” she says.
Recovering? My stomach sinks.
“He said that?” I feel a surge of irritation at Doctor Lobo for feeding her delusions.
“Wouldn’t you say so?”
I look away, silent. I don’t know what to say; I have nothing to recover from.
More uneasy silence passes between us, in which I seek familiarity, a spark of recognition, but all I see is a startled and demure person wearing my mother’s body.
It is more unsettling by the second. I want her to say a single word to show she is seeing me.
Mention the priest. Mention her own room.
Give me an order, scold me. Not the small smile and side-eyes.
For her to come back after all this time and somehow not see me is harrowing.
“Leandro,” she says softly. “Do you remember our conversation from last night?”
“Last night?” I feel hopeful suddenly. “I remember holding your hand.”
She sits up straighter, beaming. “Yes…so you do remember! In the carriage, what I told you…”
The carriage. She doesn’t remember.
I rub my face.
“I’m sorry,” I mutter, bereft.
“I was referring to”—her voice is tentative and too high-pitched—“what we discussed in the carriage. Do you remember?”
The air feels too thin to breathe.
It is unbearable. I spin around and make to leave.
“What’s the matter, Leandro?”
I’m caught between a desperate urge to leave her presence and the awareness that my behavior is frightening her. I can’t leave the room like this.
“I apologize for my abruptness but I must take my leave now,” I say. “I have urgent matters to take care of. But I’m happy that you’re, uh…I’m happy you’re here.”
She smiles. “I’m happy to be here with you, too.”
I light up for a moment, seeing a flicker of warmth in her smile. But her sugar-sweet voice is wrong. And I am not the one she is beaming at.